Pablo Garudahttp://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/
Pablo Garuda - LiveJournal.comThu, 05 Feb 2015 00:24:28 GMTLiveJournal / LiveJournal.comchriswaterguy11650878personalhttp://l-userpic.livejournal.com/74487361/11650878Pablo Garudahttp://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/
100100http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/64434.htmlThu, 05 Feb 2015 00:24:28 GMTLife Coachinghttp://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/64434.html
My interest in communication and personal change has led me to study life coaching, as well as unofficially studying psychology, and taking other courses in personal effectiveness. After coaching informally for some time, I&#39;m now establishing my <a href="http://www.chriswatkinscoaching.com/" rel="nofollow">life coaching business</a>. I work with people around the world via Skype or Hangout, and I can work in person in Melbourne.<br /><br />To make my messages clearer, I&#39;ve also set up separate blogs about my areas of focus &ndash; based on my experience, study and interest. These are:<ul><br /><li>Depression, anxiety and effective communication: <b><a href="http://www.angerclearing.com/" rel="nofollow">Anger Clearing</a></b></li><br /><li>Focus, attention deficit and tackling procrastination: <b><a href="http://www.procrastinationambulance.com/" rel="nofollow">Procrastination Ambulance</a></b></li><br /></ul>Now, what I love doing, and can do well, is talking people through their challenges and helping them find ways forward. What I need to work on more is marketing. So, feedback is appreciated. What interests you in my description above? What could have been clearer? And what did you want more of?http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/64434.htmlpublic0http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/64069.htmlTue, 07 Jan 2014 13:18:50 GMTNew bloghttp://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/64069.html
My new personal blog is at <a href="http://chriswaterguy.com" rel="nofollow">chriswaterguy.com</a> (<a href="http://chriswaterguy.com/feed" rel="nofollow">feed</a>). Lots to say, on communication, society, science, the environment, what&#39;s happening with <a href="http://appropedia.org" rel="nofollow">Appropedia</a>, &amp; whatever catches my attention - but I say it concisely.http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/64069.htmlpublic0http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/63749.htmlSun, 15 Jan 2012 07:37:42 GMTRecentChangesCamp2012 in Canberrahttp://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/63749.html
Australians with any interest in wikis: Don&#39;t miss this event if you can help it, the coming weekend (plus the Friday if you can make it) - 20-22 Jan, 2012 in Canberra.<br /><br />It&#39;s free, and it&#39;s catered, but it&#39;ll be more awesome the more people turn up to share their perspectives - whether geeky, ed-oriented, <a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/s/%23Gov20" rel="nofollow">#Gov20</a>, or other relevant themes.<br /><br /><b>More info</b>: <a href="http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/University_of_Canberra/RCC2012" rel="nofollow">University of Canberra/RCC2012</a><br /><br />&quot;RecentChangesCamp2012 is an OpenSpace unconference focused on wikis and online collaborative practices. It has been held in Canberra twice so far, and held several times in other parts of the world...&quot;http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/63749.htmlrecentchangescampwikiscanberrapublic0http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/63531.htmlWed, 03 Aug 2011 06:34:55 GMTLiveJournal giving in to comment spam?http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/63531.html
LiveJournal comment spam is getting ridiculous, and the CAPTCHA option in our settings does nothing to stop it.<br /><br />We have to deal with spam on <a href="http://www.appropedia.org/" rel="nofollow">Appropedia</a>, but we don't let it get out of control like this. We use the spam url blacklist from Wikimedia sites, and we have the option of restricting posts containing urls, e.g. by anonymous and new users. There are tools like AbuseFilter and TorBlock, to get even more sophisticated. There is no reason LiveJournal couldn't use similar methods to clamp down on spam. <br /><br />Then there's the WordPress plugin Akismet - does an amazing job at filtering out spam comments on our blog. And the Bad Behavior&nbsp; plugin for WordPress means we don't even have that many spam comments to get filtered out (which means my routine check for genuine comments that get spammed is a an easy job). <br /><br />It's not even that hard. A simple algorithm could make things so much better - e.g. &quot;<strong>all comments that contain a url and aren't from friends are held back and only posted if the user okays them</strong>.&quot; But we have no such options. <br /><br />It's not a big problem for me personally - I already have plans to move my blog to my own domain (coming soon). But it's a huge shame to see a thriving community like LiveJournal (which is also a blog platform with some cool features) let the spam bots take over without putting up an intelligent fight. And it's <a href="http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/01/12/livejournal-bots-drown-out-political-discussion-spam-porn/" rel="nofollow">impacting political discourse</a> too.<br /><br /><strong>UPDATE</strong>:<br />I just found that in my <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/manage/settings/?cat=privacy" rel="nofollow"><strong>Privacy</strong></a> settings, I can choose how I screen comments. So now I've chosen to screen comments from non-friends - so they won't be posted unless I read the notification email and approve them. That's much less of a pain as I can just ignore notifications of spam emails. But it means that effectively I'm acting as the spam filter, and that LJ's spam filtering is broken.<br /><br />I'm also changing my privacy settings to disallow anonymous posts. Sorry folks. But I won't be posting here much longer. <br />http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/63531.htmllivejournalspampublic0http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/63370.htmlTue, 24 May 2011 17:06:11 GMTAwesomely gunky adshttp://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/63370.html
Late night television in Indonesia involves watching a lot of vignettes where awesome good-looking men do awesome things. sometimes with admiring good-looking women looking on. Some of them are quite inspiring. Not in any tangible way, mind you - just the way that watching a superhero movie is inspiring. <br /><br />In none of these mini movies does anyone smoke - even though they are in fact cigarette ads. But the brand is displayed prominently at the end, followed very briefly by a health warning. <br /><br />But last night, there was a twist. After the usual awesomeness - this time on a yacht - the health warning appeared as if torn from the cigarette packet, at an angle, and floating in the water... where it had apparently been for some weeks, as it was encrusted with patchy brown gunk, and very difficult to read - even assuming you could pause it to give yourself time to read it. So this warning about heart problems and impotence became a cool part of the vignette. <br /><br />Very clever - I wish I had a fraction of these advertising smarts for promoting Appropedia.http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/63370.htmlmediapublic healthindonesiapublic0http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/63090.htmlFri, 20 May 2011 12:52:59 GMTIt's not sport if you're only watchinghttp://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/63090.html
Post moved to my new blog, <a href="http://chriswaterguy.net" rel="nofollow">chriswaterguy.net</a>:<br /><h1 style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-size: 1.571428571rem; vertical-align: baseline; clear: both; line-height: 1.2; font-weight: normal; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: &amp;quot;Open Sans&amp;quot;, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://chriswaterguy.net/sport-watching/" rel="nofollow" rel="nofollow"> &nbsp;It&rsquo;s not sport if you&rsquo;re just watching</a></h1>http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/63090.htmlsporttribalismpublic2http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/62950.htmlFri, 22 Apr 2011 06:35:52 GMTWeb development internships with Appropediahttp://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/62950.html
<p>We're expanding our internship programs for Appropedia - for those who want to learn about wikis and make a difference at the same time. One of the programs I'm looking forward to is our web development internship - for those wanting to get experience with MediaWiki and/or WordPress and Python. The model is that we have a team with interns and a number of mentors/advisors. <br /><br />At the moment we have a good number of advisors, and one intern for the (northern) summer! If we find another intern or two, even better, but the main thing is that we've now got things rolling, and will continue the program into the new academic year.</p> <p><br />A little more info:</p> <ul><li>You will use your tech skills for good - helping to build a comprehensive database of knowledge for sustainability and solutions to poverty.</li><li><a href="http://www.appropedia.org/" rel="nofollow">Appropedia</a> is the leading wiki for sustainability, with a focus on practical solutions.</li><li>The only fixed requirements are a desire to learn and a willingness to try.</li><li>This is a global, online project, and you can work from anywhere in the world with internet access.</li><li>Start date is flexible - the program begins on May 1, but individual interns may start later.</li></ul>Project homepage:<br /><br /><div style="margin-left:40px"><a title="Appropedia:Tech Interns, mid-2011" href="http://www.appropedia.org/Appropedia:Tech_Interns,_mid-2011" rel="nofollow"><span style="font-size: larger;"><strong>Appropedia:Tech Interns, mid-2011</strong></span></a></div><br />Please pass the word around!http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/62950.htmlinterrnshipswikitechpublic0http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/62609.htmlFri, 01 Apr 2011 12:34:44 GMTThey call it "balance"http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/62609.html
Email conversation after the recent election in NSW, Australia. Context: The Greens increased their vote by 2% to about 12%, but this was dwarfed by the massive swing against the Labor party, to the Liberals [for non-Australians, the &quot;Liberals&quot; are actually our conservative party]. We could analyze why they didn't do a lot better, but the simple fact is that the Greens vote is slowly climbing each election.<br /><br />A former advisor to a conservative PM, appearing on the discussion program Q&amp;A (on the national broadcaster, the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/" rel="nofollow">ABC</a>). I was so disgusted, I sent this email to a friend:<br /><br /><div style="margin-left:40px"><strong>Me</strong>: Graeme Morris was on TV talking about how the Greens got nearly wiped out. Political spin (an indirect term for &quot;lies&quot;). When they choose these panels, I wonder if they think &quot;We've got a very sharp commentator, and a non-partisan, sometimes insightful writer... now for balance, let's get on a lying party hack, like Ackerman, Bolt or Morris.&quot;<br /><br /><strong>My friend responded</strong>: The Rules for conduct of the ABC now state* that any panel discussion must contain a left or moderate person, a random Joe/overseas person and a foaming at the mouth right-winger who would be incapable of surviving outside of their myopic bubble of hate and venom, like Andrew Ackerman or Piers Blot (sic). This is because it&rsquo;s now been Proven that the ABC is in the thrall of the left (although, funnily, even eleven long years of John Howard didn&rsquo;t manage to shift that, despite his best efforts &ndash; so I&rsquo;d guess the condition is terminal), so bringing in an unhinged righty brings the average just about back to the centre... and this is the main reason why I cannot watch Q&amp;A. It&rsquo;s called balance, you know.<br /><br />&lt;sigh&gt; Well, at least it wasn&rsquo;t &ndash; say &ndash; Scott Morrison...<br /><br />*well, they don&rsquo;t, but they might as well</div><div style="margin-left:40px">&nbsp;</div><div style="margin-left:40px">&nbsp;</div> Tthere are intelligent conservative commentators. Gerald Henderson, deeply partisan as he is, would be a big improvement. There are others who I think are better on economic matters, and there must be better commentators on politics as well. Why not get one of them on?http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/62609.htmlmediaaustraliapoliticspublic0http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/62360.htmlTue, 14 Dec 2010 18:50:41 GMTWiki-thinking at the World Bankhttp://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/62360.html
The World Bank's Chief Economist for Africa asks:<br /><br /><div style="margin-left:40px"><strong>Why not produce the [World Development Report] like Wikipedia, and invite the whole world to write it</strong>?<br />&nbsp;</div>See the full post on the Appropedia blog:<a href="http://blogs.appropedia.org/2010/12/14/world-bank-wikipedia/" rel="nofollow" title="Permanent link to Will the World Bank go all “Wikipedia”?" rel="nofollow"><br /><br /></a><div style="margin-left:40px"><a href="http://blogs.appropedia.org/2010/12/14/world-bank-wikipedia/" rel="nofollow" title="Permanent link to Will the World Bank go all “Wikipedia”?" rel="nofollow"><strong><span style="font-size: larger;">Will the World Bank go all &ldquo;Wikipedia&rdquo;?</span></strong></a></div>http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/62360.htmlwikipediawikisoptimisticpublic0http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/62034.htmlWed, 20 Oct 2010 08:56:05 GMTRecognizing the threat: Orwell and communismhttp://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/62034.html
All we see of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell" rel="nofollow">George Orwell</a> in popular culture is a shallow TV program that uses his sinister theme of "Big Brother". But he was one of the great thinkers of the 20th century, all the greater because worked hard to express his ideas clearly, and because he risked his life for his beliefs - ultimately losing it to illness which he probably picked up on the battlefields of Spain. <br /><br />In the late 1930's and for a long time afterwards, being pro-communist was popular among European intellectuals. Orwell stood out for being socialist, yet vehemently anti-communist. Many others on the left turned away from communism during the 1950s or later. (A small number continue with religious fervor to believe whatever nonsense is required, to keep the communist faith today).<br /><br />When did Orwell reach his views against communism? And what led him to this? I'm still trying to figure that out.<br /><br />He had a great clarity of thought in moral and political issues. Not infallible of course - discussing this with a friend, I'm now convinced me that Orwell was wrong to say that the British ruling class approved of Franco and Nazism prior to WW2. But he was right so often, and so far ahead of his time.<br /><br /><strong>Spain and the British ruling class</strong><br /><div style="margin-left:40px"><br />By that time one did not need to be a clairvoyant to foresee that war between Britain and Germany was coming; one could even foretell within a year or two when it would come. Yet in the most mean, cowardly, hypocritical way the British ruling class did all they could to hand Spain over to Franco and the Nazis. Why? Because they were pro-Fascist, was the obvious answer. Undoubtedly they were, and yet when it came to the final showdown they chose to stand up to Germany. It is still very uncertain what plan they acted on in backing Franco, and they may have had no clear plan at all. Whether the British ruling class are wicked or merely stupid is one of the most difficult questions of our time, and at certain moments a very important question.- Orwell, <a href="http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/Spanish_War/english/esw_1" rel="nofollow"><em>Looking back on the Spanish War</em></a>, 1943.<br /><br />&nbsp;</div>Orwell did seem to have had a sense of foreboding, and by early '39 (when he finished writing <em>Coming Up For Air</em>) he seemed to regard war as inevitable. Many in the ruling class, however, were traumatized by WW1 to the extent that they made compromises and serious errors in trying to avoid a repeat, and made things worse. Easy to see that in hindsight, but Orwell (and Churchill, from a very different political outlook) saw it earlier.<br /><br />But there's a big difference between being pro-fascist (or anti-communist) and pro-Nazi. Reading about what went on in the days of the Spanish Republic (an anarchist-socialist-communist coalition) you didn't have to be a Franco supporter to be worried about the Republic.<br /><br />There was a lot of sympathy for Hitler's anti-communism, but there wasn't a lot of vocal support for expansionist Nazism in Britain prior to WW2, if I understand correctly. Once they finally woke up to what Hitler was doing, they did stand up to Germany.<br /><br /><strong>Orwell's views of communism </strong><br /><br />Even in &quot;The Road to Wigan Pier,&quot; 1937 (<a href="http://orwell.ru/Download/The_Road_to_Wigan_Pier/" rel="nofollow">download</a>) based on his visit to the north of England in 1936, he seems to be already very negative in his views of communism, though it's unclear to me how much awareness and opposition he had to the Soviet communism at that time. Note that this is before his experiences with communist propaganda and betrayals when he fought in the Spanish Civil War. <br /><br />To explain, I've given some lengthy quotes - but Orwell is always a good read. <br /><br />He also expresses sympathy with a communist speaker at one point, about the hypocrisy of teaching the working class about &quot;food values,&quot; where I feel torn in exactly the same way as Orwell:<br /><br /><div style="margin-left:40px">First you condemn a family to live on thirty shillings a week, and then you have the damned impertinence to tell them how they are to spend their money. He was quite right &mdash; I agree heartily. Yet all the same it is a pity that, merely for the lack of a proper tradition, people should pour muck like tinned milk down their throats and not even know that it is inferior to the product of the cow.</div><br />But he also reveals his views of communism's dodgy theories, and its attacks on democracy:<br /><br /><div><div style="margin-left:40px">It seems only yesterday that Socialists, especially orthodox Marxists, were telling me with superior smiles that Socialism was going to arrive of its own accord by some mysterious process called &lsquo;historic necessity&rsquo;. Possibly that belief still lingers, but it has been shaken, to say the least of it. Hence the sudden attempts of Communists in various countries to ally themselves with democratic forces which they have been sabotaging for years past.&nbsp;&nbsp;</div><br />Also, socialism in the working class - and showing his contempt for communist theory:<br /><br /><div style="margin-left:40px">For it must be remembered that a working man, so long as he remains a genuine working man, is seldom or never a Socialist in the complete, logically consistent sense. Very likely he votes Labour, or even Communist if he gets the chance, but his conception of Socialism is quite different from that of the, book-trained Socialist higher up. To the ordinary working man, the sort you would meet in any pub on Saturday night, Socialism does not mean much more than better wages and shorter&rsquo; hours and nobody bossing you about. To the more revolutionary type, the type who is a hunger-marcher and is blacklisted by employers, the word is a sort of rallying-cry against the forces of oppression, a vague threat of future violence. But, so far as my experience goes, no genuine working man grasps the deeper implications of Socialism. Often, in my opinion, he is a truer Socialist than the orthodox Marxist, because he does remember, what the other so often forgets, that Socialism means justice and common decency. But what he does not grasp is that Socialism cannot be narrowed down to mere economic justice&rsquo; and that a reform of that magnitude is bound to work immense changes in our civilization and his own way of life. His vision of the Socialist future is a vision of present society with the worst abuses left out, and with interest centring round the same things as at present &mdash; family life, the pub, football, and local politics. As for the philosophic side of Marxism, the pea-and-thimble trick with those three mysterious entities, thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, I have never met a working man who had the faintest interest in it.&nbsp;</div><br />Sounds like someone who hasn't been a believer in communism for a long time, if ever.<br /><br /><br />And, not about communism per se but relevant to dictatorial communism:<br /><br /><br /><div style="margin-left:40px">Sometimes I look at a Socialist... and wonder what the devil his motive really&nbsp;<i>is</i>. Poverty and, what is more, the habits of mind created by poverty, are something to be abolished&nbsp;<i>from above</i>, by violence if necessary; perhaps even preferably by violence. Hence his worship of &lsquo;great&rsquo; men and appetite for dictatorships, Fascist or Communist; for to him, apparently (<i>vide</i>&nbsp;his remarks apropos of the Italo-Abyssinian war and the Stalin-Wells conversations), Stalin and Mussolini are almost equivalent persons... The truth is that, to many people calling themselves Socialists, revolution does not mean a movement of the masses with which they hope to associate themselves; it means a set of reforms which &lsquo;we&rsquo;, the clever ones, are going to impose upon &lsquo;them&rsquo;, the Lower Orders.<br />&nbsp;</div> and then, communism and Catholicism<br /><br /><div style="margin-left:40px">Hence the net effect of books like this is to give outsiders the impression that there is nothing in Communism except&nbsp;<i>hatred</i>. And here once again you come upon that queer resemblance between Communism and (convert) Roman Catholicism..... You will find there the same venom and the same dishonesty, though, to do the Catholic justice, you will not usually find the same bad manners... The Communist and the Catholic are not saying the same thing, in a sense they are even saying opposite things, and each would gladly boil the other in oil if circumstances permitted; but from the point of view of an outsider they are very much alike.</div><br />Reminds me of the fear and venom aimed at communists by in Indonesia under Suharto (1965-1998), when Suharto's own practices in propaganda, fear and social welfare had more than a little of the communist about them. (I'm not criticizing his government for having welfare programs, but there were definitely some socialist principles mixed into his government's economics, at the same time as socialism and communism were demonized.)<br /><br />This&nbsp; next quote is more ambiguous:<br /><br /><div style="margin-left:40px">Of course, as I have suggested already, it is not strictly fair to judge a movement by its adherents; but the point is that people invariably do so, and that the popular conception of Socialism is coloured by the conception of a Socialist as a dull or disagreeable person. &lsquo;Socialism&rsquo; is pictured as a state of affairs in which our more vocal Socialists would feel thoroughly at home. This does great harm to the cause. The ordinary man may not flinch from a dictatorship of the proletariat, if you offer it tactfully; offer him a dictatorship of the prigs, and he gets ready to fight.<br />&nbsp;</div> and<br /><br /><div style="margin-left:40px">Marxists as a rule are not very good at reading the minds of their adversaries; if they were, the situation in Europe might be less desperate than it is at present.&nbsp;</div><br />Apparently wishing that the Soviets would be tougher in standing up to Hitler. This seems consistent with his later writings on the Spanish Civil War, before it ended, when he saw a communist victory as a lesser evil to a fascist one. I don't know if he still saw things in this order later, when he wrote <em>1984 </em>and <em>Animal Farm.</em><br /><br />On the left side of politics, Orwell remained a contrarian, vehemently opposing Stalinism and communism while it was still popular to excuse and hide their atrocities.<br /><br />What gave him that insight? So far, from reading Orwell, my conclusion is brutal honesty, first-hand experience (e.g. in seeing communists in action in the Spanish Civil War), nonconformity and intelligence. <br /><br />Is that fair? If so, how do we imitate this? <br /><br />(We could also ask: What threats are we missing today, where Orwell's way of thinking could help us? But that's a bigger question that deserves its own post.)</div><a name='cutid1-end'></a>http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/62034.htmlcommunismwritingpoliticsgeorge orwellpublic0http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/61774.htmlSun, 10 Oct 2010 09:45:29 GMT"Coalition of the Willing" - climate action post-Copenhagenhttp://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/61774.html
Harnessing social activism with the power of open source. Bringing together creativity, science and web geekery to make an impact.<br /><br />I've been talking a lot with the people behind this, and excited to see their commitment to collaboration and doing things the open source way is deep and genuine. For one thing, they've recognized early on that a logical solution to the proposed &quot;Green Knowledge Trust&quot; is a <a href="http://www.appropedia.org/Green_wiki" rel="nofollow">green wiki</a>, and so we've been talking about how <a href="http://www.appropedia.org/" rel="nofollow">Appropedia</a> fits in. <br /><br />But enough from me - roll the film!<br /><br /><lj-embed id="17" /><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/12772935" rel="nofollow">Coalition Of The Willing</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/coalitionfilm" rel="nofollow">coalitionfilm</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com" rel="nofollow">Vimeo</a>.</p><br />Or <a href="http://www.vimeo.com/12772935" rel="nofollow"><strong>watch the video (larger size) at Vimeo</strong></a><br /><br />See also the <a href="http://coalitionofthewilling.org.uk/" rel="nofollow">Coalition homepage</a> and <a href="http://www.coalitionblog.org/" rel="nofollow">blog</a>.<br /><br />If this excites you, watch for ways to get involved. One way is through the online and local <a href="http://movementcamp.org/" rel="nofollow">MovementCamps</a> - the first of which is online in 4.5 hours - sorry for the short notice! That's 2pm GMT, 10/10/10.<br /><br />(reposted from the <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/appropedia/" rel="nofollow">Appropedia Community Blog</a>)http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/61774.htmlcotwcollaborationclimate changewikispublic0http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/61689.htmlThu, 07 Oct 2010 19:05:17 GMTNew columnhttp://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/61689.html
Looks like I'll be writing an irregular column in <a href="http://energy savings made by each UK govt department will be highly visible, recorded each day on an online table. http://j.mp/atlGml" rel="nofollow">Free Software Magazine</a>. <br /><br />Note that's not <em>freeware</em> - the free in Free Software refers to <em>freedom</em> (to do what you want), not &quot;doesn't cost you anything&quot; (though that's usually true too). Free software is the original term for <strong>open source software</strong>, more or less, but with a more ideological emphasis and generally a lot more zeal. Personally I tend to say &quot;open source&quot; because I'm pessimistic about the likelihood of people picking up the point about <a href="http://www.appropedia.org/Software_freedoms" rel="nofollow">software freedom</a>. But &quot;freedom&quot; really is a valuable thing in this context, as is&nbsp; &quot;openness&quot;. <br /><br />My first column for FSM is &quot;<a href="http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/columns/saving_identica_and_statusnet" rel="nofollow">Saving Identica and StatusNet?</a>&quot; - some suggestions for dealing with spam on open source improved version of Twitter. &nbsp; Future columns will vary from big picture stuff to specific software projects. For future reference: <a href="http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/poster/87822" rel="nofollow">My posts on FSM</a>. <br /><br />Now working on a post about climate, free software, and the <a href="http://coalitionofthewilling.org.uk/" rel="nofollow">Coalition of the Willing</a>.http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/61689.htmlcotwfreesoftwareclimatepublic0http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/61271.htmlThu, 16 Sep 2010 11:35:03 GMTToraja burialhttp://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/61271.html
Back in Jakarta. Planning to get out of town more though - the air is quite polluted here, and when indoors, there's generally either cigarette smoke or &quot;air freshener&quot; - and I have a low tolerance for chemical smells.<br /> <br /> Just got back from the Sulawesi highlands, where my sister-in-law's father's burial took place. He died at 90-something, last year. The Toraja people wait a while for their burials, and save up for water buffalo to slaughter. It was fun and interesting to be a part of the ceremony, but I couldn't avoid walking past the poor, slaughtered buffalos.<br /> <br /> I preferred the bit where they carried the coffin to the tomb, putting it on a bamboo frame which they &quot;danced&quot; (bouncing it up and down), pushed back and forth in a contest; ran it down the muddy hill to the road, stopping only for a mud fight. <br /><br />In all we spent about a week in the countryside where the burial ceremony was held, and we stayed in one of the bamboo structures (a kind of&nbsp; longhouse) that were built for the occasion. <br /><br />During the day people would dress up and engage in traditional ceremonies dating to animist times, and at night jostle for position at the few power outlets, charging Blackberries and Nokias (plus one iPhone, and my Android).http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/61271.htmltorajasulawesipublic0http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/61142.htmlFri, 13 Aug 2010 14:56:47 GMTTake care on Facebookhttp://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/61142.html
A friend asked on Facebook about identity theft, and how to respond to friend requests from people you don't know well. Here are my thoughts: <br /><br />Limit the info you put out there. E.g. don't use your exact birthday or your banking address in a public place. (Downside: I once had someone go to a lot of trouble for my birthday, but they got my birthday from Skype, which at the time was more than a week out. We laughed though, and had a good time anyway.)<br /><br />I gave up being very picky about FB friends - a long as there's some connection or common interest, I'll approve them. It's a social network, and I want to make new connections with likeminded people.<br /><br />But I consider FB a very public place, and it's not for sensitive info, whether the gritty details of my personal life or info that an identity thief could use. <br /><br />Posted via LjBeetlehttp://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/61142.htmlfacebookidentity theftinternet securitypublic2http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/60795.htmlFri, 02 Jul 2010 06:00:53 GMTCorruptionhttp://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/60795.html
Talking with my brother about power, politics and influence in Indonesia, I'm again reminded of Lord Acton's famous quote:<br /><br />&quot;All power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men...&quot;http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/60795.htmlindonesiacorruptionpublic0http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/60497.htmlMon, 28 Jun 2010 14:41:16 GMTWomen, women everywhere (does it matter?)http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/60497.html
<span><span><span>Sydney is now represented by women at every level of government:<br /><ul><li><span><span><span>Mayor</span></span></span> of Sydney</li><li><span><span><span>NSW State premier</span></span></span></li><li>Australian prime minister</li><li>Governor General (technically the head of government, depending who you ask)</li><li>The &quot;Queen of Australia,&quot; the foreigner and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royalty" rel="nofollow">welfare recipient</a>, Queen Elizabeth II.</li></ul>So - three levels of politicians, and two mostly symbolic figures. Does it matter?<br /><br />I think it matters less and less. I suspect it wouldn't even matter a whole lot in America, since they've seen women in other positions, and those who watch the international news would realize it's not a big deal. <br /><br />Our new PM Gillard was elected not because of her biology, but because she's been performing the Number 2 job respectably well. (Nor was she given a &quot;poisoned chalice&quot; as has been suggested - she was appointed deputy leader of the party well before the 2007 election when they entered office, and stayed there while Labor rode high on popularity.)<br /><br />One area of progress in the world does seem to be more acceptance of difference. I recall during the Pauline Hanson years of the late 90s, when she endorsed a fear-mongering book warning against the multicultural path Australia was treading (though she later stated she hadn't read it, IIUC). In 2050, in this xenophobic dystopian fantasy, the Australian Prime Minister was a Chinese lesbian.* Race, gender sexuality - it's all there. At the time it seemed funny that they were reaching for the most bizarre combination they could think of. Now I wonder what was bizarre, other than the irrational (yet so human) fear of the other. There's a Chinese lesbian in cabinet now, Penny Wong the Australian Minister for Climate Change, and she could yet be PM well before 2050. I don't know whether she's a good choice for PM - maybe now with the change of PM, we'll see whether she actually wants to act on climate change. But it now seems silly to think that her race, gender or orientation could ever have been an issue.<br /></span></span></span><br />There are a lot of subtleties to this, related to whether one gender might on average be better in certain ways, or the value of this the example to young people (which is certainly a good point). But if I even start, this blog post will end up 4 times as long, and I won't get any other work done tonight. Suffice it to say, that when I vote, gender won't be a factor, either way.<br /><br />* Actually it was a half Chinese / half Indian lesbian cyborg called Poona Li Hung, says <a href="http://www.business2.com.au/2010/04/how-do-you-feng-shui-pauline-hanson/" rel="nofollow">this blogger</a>. Ms Wong doesn't quite qualify, AFAIK.http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/60497.htmlracegovernmentgendersexualitypublic0http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/60228.htmlSat, 26 Jun 2010 13:35:31 GMTGreen city policieshttp://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/60228.html
In the very early 2000s I looked up the NSW Greens policy on the Built Environment, and the version that I found was rabidly anti-developer, more from an <span>activist perspective than a planner's perspective. Now, I agree that developers are a big problem, but saying developers must pay for so many different things (restricting their profit) and must not do (long list of things) makes the developer's role extremely difficult - and we really want good developers' rather than no developers. <br /><br />I then met Lee Rhiannon (Greens MLC, that's equivalent to a senator, in the NSW state parliament) and told her my concerns. She acknowledged them and said a more balanced policy would be approved very soon. It was, and I was very impressed by the improvement, and the ditching of the anti-developer rhetoric. (I helped write the draft urban planning policy for the NSW Democrats around the same time - I think both policies had good points.) <br /><br />To be fair, the early, underfunded Greens probably couldn't easily call on professional urban planners to write their policies, so I wouldn't judge them harshly for the early version, in hindsight.<br /><br />I'm still concerned that their annual &quot;Bad Developer Awards&quot; don't have &quot;Bad Council Awards&quot; for NIMBYism and knocking back good designs, or good developer awards, for livable, intelligent medium and high density development. I mentioned this (or some of these award ideas) to Sylvia Hale (another MLC) - while I do respect Ms Hale, I was disappointed I didn't get a more enthusiastic response.<br /></span><br />Related pages on Appropedia (sustainable policy wiki): <ul><li><a href="http://www.appropedia.org/Urban_planning" rel="nofollow">Urban planning</a></li><li><a href="http://www.appropedia.org/Sustainable_cities" rel="nofollow">Sustainable cities</a></li></ul>http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/60228.htmlurban planningsustainable citiespublic0http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/59992.htmlFri, 11 Jun 2010 12:26:53 GMTFuzzy progressive thinkinghttp://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/59992.html
<div style="margin-left:40px"><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703561604575282190930932412.html?mod=rss_opinion_main" rel="nofollow"><br />Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? - Self-identified liberals and Democrats do badly on questions of basic economics.</a> - a professor of economics writes in the WSJ.<br /><br />&nbsp;</div>I expected to find that the researcher used really biased questions where someone with a left-wing perspective would be judged wrong. But looking at the questions, it sadly seems that the questions were fair, and the common lefty answers were simply wrong.<br /> <br /> I'm not completely surprised - and for some of the same reasons that I don't identify as left-wing (even though others may consider me so).<br /><br />Now, &quot;left-wing&quot; overlaps a lot with &quot;progressive&quot;. I'd like to see progressive-minded people asking and answering hard questions about how to make a difference in the world. Basic economic literacy is essential to doing that.<br /><br /><em>Edit:</em>&nbsp; A few big provisos here: <br /><br />1. &quot;Third World workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited (unenlightened answer: agree).&quot;<br /><br />Actually, Professor Klein is wrong here - they are indeed being exploited. The point, though - what I think Klein is getting at - is whether this working relationship benefits the worker. And it does. If you think being exploited is bad, <em>not </em>being exploited is worse.<br /><br />2. I suspect that if we chose different questions, we would find that right-wingers are just as misguided in their economic beliefs.<br /><br />3. This is far from a rigorous study - the participants are described as &quot;respondents.&quot; It seems like they were probably self-selected. Still, these misconceptions by lefties are consistent with my own observations.&nbsp;&nbsp; <em>Edit #2: </em>I shouldn't read anything into &quot;respondents&quot; - turns out that term is widely used in studies. Still, without any info on methodology, this should be just regarded as an interesting informal study - better than a show of hands at the pub, but not by much.<br /><br />http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/59992.htmlleft-wingpoliticseconomicsprogressivespublic0http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/59810.htmlFri, 21 May 2010 07:58:52 GMTMurder by Facebookhttp://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/59810.html
Sydney was shocked recently by the murder of a young woman, 18 years old, after she met a man on Facebook. The man assumed an identity to appeal to her good nature and her aspiration of working in national parks. <br /> <br /> That it's a tragedy is clear. But is it an avoidable tragedy? Was it simply a case of doing something stupid and dangerous? I've heard that said, but wWe all do stupid things, but usually we don't die as a result. <br /> <br /> We all make judgements about who we trust and who we don't online. I know I do when I use <a href="http://www.couchsurfing.org" rel="nofollow">CouchSurfing</a>, and when I've used rideshare on Craigslist. People meet strangers from internet dating sites every day, and usually we stay safe. How? Being sensible and meeting in public is one way, but the website that arranges the meeting has a key role to play. Facebook makes it easy to fake an identity, and give the impression of being friends with people whose judgement you trust. A manipulative and dishonest person can take advantage of this, and of people who don't operate from suspicion and cynicism. (I'd rather not operate from suspicion and cynicism either, but when you're using a dodgy platform that doesn't help you see if people are dodgy, then a bit of negativity may save you, sadly.)<br /> <br /> CouchSurfing.org is very different - it gives you a much better idea of whether the person's for real, through:<br /> <ul><li>Verified identities (for those prepared to make a modest donation)</li><li>A much more sophisticated friend function (rather than Facebook's simplistic &quot;friend&quot; or &quot;not friend&quot; model, CouchSurfing friends list how they met, when, and how well they know the user),</li><li>References, that flesh out the picture of the person in question.</li><li>A warning before you contact someone that has had a significant number of negative references.</li></ul> CouchSurfing.org is not primarily a profit-oriented site like Facebook, and places the safety of its users above the tricks and gimmicks that Facebook uses to keep people engaged. On Craigslist there is no pretence of an established identity, which is possibly better than Facebook in that it doesn't lull us into a false sense of security. <br /> <br /> <br /> While I described Facebook as <span style="font-style: italic;">profit-oriented</span>, it's not actually profitable, and there's a good chance it never will be. But the goal of enormous profits consistently leads Facebook to make choices that are not in the interests of users. Users are starting to wake up - let's make sure we don't get lulled back to sleep.http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/59810.htmlprivacyfacebooksecuritycouchsurfingsocial networkingpublic0http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/59611.htmlMon, 17 May 2010 03:47:49 GMTGreen beanshttp://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/59611.html
On the theme of &quot;all things in moderation&quot;... green beans are actually slightly toxic. I think you'd have to eat a lot before it became a problem, though, e.g. green smoothies loaded with green beans on a regular basis.<br /><ul><li><a href="http://community.livejournal.com/pollanesque/160930.html" rel="nofollow">Full blog post at &quot;Pollanesque&quot;</a>.</li><li>Appropedia's &quot;green beans&quot; page: <a href="http://www.appropedia.org/Green_beans#Mildly_toxic_when_raw" rel="nofollow"><strong><span>Mildly toxic when raw</span></strong></a>. (If you can improve it, click edit on that page and type away...)</li></ul>http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/59611.htmlbeanstoxinshealthpublic0http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/59234.htmlSat, 15 May 2010 06:23:37 GMTWhen to believehttp://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/59234.html
<div style="margin-left:40px">&quot; Do not believe anything because it is said by an authority, or if<br /> it &nbsp;is said to come from angels, or from Gods, or from an inspired<br /> source. &nbsp; Believe it only if you have explored it in your own heart<br /> and mind and body and found it to be true. &nbsp;Work out your own path,<br /> through diligence.&quot;<br /> - Gautama Buddha</div><br />By definition, you should not believe this because the Buddha said it.http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/59234.htmlbeliefbuddhismpublic1http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/58948.htmlTue, 11 May 2010 08:47:23 GMTEnding the Cuba stalematehttp://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/58948.html
The US embargo of Cuba plays into the Castros' hands. By acting like Goliath, the USA makes Cuba look like David, and progressive-minded leaders, who surely should know better, visit Cuba and brush aside the existence of political repression. So argues a recent article in <em>The New York Review of Books</em>:<br /><p style="margin-left: 40px;">For this to happen, the United States must make the first move. President Obama should approach allies in Europe and Latin America with an offer to lift the US embargo if the other countries agree to join a coalition to press Cuba to meet a single, concrete demand: the release of all political prisoners.</p> <p style="margin-left: 40px;">Some governments are sure to rebuff the offer, especially in Latin America. But for many others, the prospect of ending the embargo will remove what has long been the main obstacle to openly condemning the Cuban government&rsquo;s abuses. And concentrating this multilateral effort exclusively on the issue of political prisoners will make it far more difficult for leaders who say they respect human rights to remain silent.</p> <p style="margin-left: 40px;">The new coalition would give the Cuban government a choice: free its political prisoners or face sanctions. Unlike the current US embargo, these sanctions should directly target the Cuban leaders&mdash;by denying them travel visas or freezing their overseas assets, for example&mdash;without harming the Cuban population as a whole. Ideally this ultimatum alone would suffice to prompt the government to release its prisoners. But even if it did not, the new approach toward Cuba&mdash;multilateral, targeted, and focused on human rights rather than regime change&mdash;would fundamentally transform the international dynamic that has long helped the Castros stifle dissent. The Cuban government&rsquo;s efforts to isolate its critics at home would lead to its own isolation from the international community.</p> <p style="margin-left: 40px;"><a mce_href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/may/27/cuba-a-way-forward/?page=3" href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/may/27/cuba-a-way-forward/?page=3" rel="nofollow">Cuba&mdash;A Way Forward</a>, <em>The New York Review of Books.</em><br />&nbsp;</p>Beware of being sidetracked into health statistics (it was a revolution by doctors and has achieved some admirable things) or <a href="http://www.appropedia.org/Permaculture" rel="nofollow">permaculture</a> (their oil supply stopped - if ours stops we'll be doing more permaculture too). Acknowledge any good points Cuba might have, but also acknowledge that Cuba's regime is an authoritarian one, and the people live in fear. As the article states:<br /><br /><div style="margin-left:40px">Some outside observers contend that the existence of around two hundred political prisoners has little impact on the lives of the 11 million other Cubans. But as the blogger Reinaldo Escobar recently wrote, &ldquo;Why then does an index finger cross the lips, eyes widen, or a look of horror appear on the faces of my friends when at their houses I commit the indiscretion of making a political comment within earshot of the neighbors?&rdquo;</div>http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/58948.htmlunited states foreign policycubapoliticsinternational affairsauthoritarianismpublic0http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/58719.htmlSun, 09 May 2010 14:13:08 GMTNonviolent Communicationhttp://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/58719.html
I'm reading a book on &quot;<a href="http://www.wikihow.com/Practice-Nonviolent-Communication" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Nonviolent Communication</a>&quot; (NVC, or &quot;Compassionate Communication&quot;) and finding it very, very valuable and practical. I've known a few people who've used it and speak highly of it -'ve already had a chance to use it a little, and it can be quite transforming.<br /><br />It's claimed that it's been helpful in political dialogs, e.g. in Palestine, and in a political issue between France and Algeria - I can definitely imagine it helping in politics, as in families, &quot;relationships&quot; and friendships.<br /><br />The one thing that concerns me is that it's not a book I'd give to a non-bookish friend, as it's not super easy to read. Yet it's too important to allow it to be limited in this way. So I'm glad to be able to point to the wikiHow article (the link above) as a clear and succinct explanation. <br /><br />Here's an even briefer version of the four key ideas - a summary of wikiHow's summary:<br /><ol><li><b><b>State your observations</b></b> - purely factual observations, with no component of judgment or evaluation. <ul><li>For example, &quot;It's 2:00 a.m. and I hear your stereo playing&quot; states an observed fact, while &quot;It's way too late to be making such an awful racket&quot; makes an evaluation.</li><li>Directly observable facts provide a common ground for communication.</li></ul></li><li><b>State the feeling</b> that the observation is triggering in you. (Or, if the other person is the one who has the feeling, guess what they're feeling, and ask.) Name the emotion without moral judgment.<br /> <ul><li>For example, &quot;There's half an hour to go before the show starts, and I see that you're pacing <i>(observation).</i> Are you nervous?&quot; Or, &quot;I see your dog running around without a leash and barking <i>(observation).</i> I'm scared.&quot;</li></ul></li><li><b>State the need that isn't being met, thus causing the feeling</b>. (Or, guess the need that caused the feeling in the other person, and ask.) <br /> <ul><li>For example, &quot;I see you looking away while I'm talking, and you've been speaking so quietly, I can't hear you <i>(observation).</i> I'm feeling uncomfortable <i>(feeling)</i> because I'm needing connection right now.&quot; Or, &quot;I saw that your name wasn't mentioned in the acknowledgments. Are you feeling resentful because you're not getting the appreciation you need?&quot;</li><li>Needs have a special meaning in NVC... e.g. wanting to go to a movie with someone is not a need, and a desire to spend time with a specific person is not a need. The need in that case might be <em> companionship</em>.</li></ul></li><li><b><b>Make a concrete request</b> for action to meet the need just identified</b>. Ask clearly and specifically for what you want right now, rather than hinting or stating only what you don't want.<br /> <ul><li>For example, &quot;I notice that you haven't spoken in the last ten minutes <i>(observation).</i> Are you feeling bored? <i>(feeling)</i>&quot; If the answer is yes, you might bring up your own feeling and propose an action: &quot;Well, I'm bored, too. Hey, how would you like to go to the Exploratorium?&quot; or perhaps, &quot;I'm finding these people really interesting to talk with. How about we meet up in an hour when I'm done here?&quot;</li><li>For the request to really be a request -&nbsp; not a demand - allow the other person to say no or propose an alternative. </li></ul></li></ol><br />This takes effort and patience, as the language of blame comes so much more easily - but NVC is way more enriching. The <a href="http://www.wikihow.com/Practice-Nonviolent-Communication#Sentence_templates" rel="nofollow">sentence templates</a> are handy in learning how to put it together.<br /><br />If you try it, please leave a comment and tell how it goes.<br />http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/58719.htmlwikihowwikiscommunicationnonviolencenonviolent communicationpublic5http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/58398.htmlMon, 19 Apr 2010 13:45:43 GMTMoney and health carehttp://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/58398.html
<span>All the talk about health care reform, first in the USA and now in Australia, brings out this observation:<br /><br />Our main problems in Australia seem to be underfunding and increasing managerialism&nbsp; - if that's a word. I mean a bloating middle management at the expense of good people doing actual work and getting treated decently. Of course, I may be biased by having spoken to nurses and other health workers, </span>who generally have horror stories about management that sacks workers for refusing to agree to oppressive demands, and just doesn't replace the workers, so less workers are expected to do the same workload. Except of course they can't, and don't manage it.<br /><br />A figure I've seen quoted several times is that the USA spends <b>twice</b> as much as Australia on health care - with worse outcomes. That doesn't mean we've got it right. Maybe Americans are spending the right amount, and we're a bit closer to spending it in effective ways.http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/58398.htmlhealth carepublic0http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/58166.htmlSat, 17 Apr 2010 12:48:57 GMTHomeopathyhttp://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/58166.html
If you want to want to know the deep mystical truths about the healing powers of homeopathy, that science is too narrow to perceive, then you should watch this video. <br /><br />It won't actually tell you about deep mystical truths, but it'll tell you something you need to know, and it might make you laugh at the same time:<br /><br /><lj-embed id="15" />http://chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/58166.htmlpseudosciencehomeopathypublic20